Thursday, October 29, 2009

BraveNewWorld101

And
that, put in the Director sententiously, that
is the secret of happiness ….. All conditioning aims at that: making people
like their inescapable social destiny.Aldous Huxley: Brave New World.

Things
had seemed so settled.

There
had seemed to be rules:

study
hard;

work
hard;

play
the game;

retire
early

and
travel the world.

But
it’s all now topsy-turvy…

What
once was true,

reliable

and
dependable.

Simply:

is
no longer.

This
Brave New World.

Not
exactly Huxley’s by any means

(Which
was of course originally Shakespeare’s:

O, wonder!How many
goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new
world,That has such people in't!

(V, i) The Tempest.)

In
fact;

in
reality,

it
is simply the old world

once
again.

The
one where:

you’re
on your own.

Find
a creek.

A
bit of land.

Stake
a claim.

Build
a farm.

Raise
a family.

100%
down to you.

In
sickness.

And
in health.

BUT
WAIT!

It
is a l i t t l e easier.

The
guarantees are gone, for sure.

But
the opportunies do still lurk…

We
just need to get real. Once more.

No
longer are we given (were we ever, in reality?) a guarantee.

They-the
opportunities-have to be grabbed and grown.

We
need to get real, grow up and
realise:

Real Education in a Brave New World

Question
the basics: why do I need a degree?

Why
do I need an MBA?

The
correct answer is not: ‘because everybody else does it’

If
you do them: do them brilliantly.

Then
add the two magic ingredients:

(1)
real work experience gained at any and all opportunities.

(2)
great mental attitude.

The
latter two are priceless.

They
enable a future employer to distinguish you: the friendly wolf

from
the crowd, the flock of sheep.

Real Money in a Brave New World

Question
the basics: who can I depend on to manage and look after my money?

The
answer is: a resounding silence.

So:
create your own plan:

break
the time=money model.

And
create value=money.

And
hence you can increase your value (and hence money flow) disproportionally to
the time you exert.

Real Happiness in a Brave New World.

Happiness
cannot be dependent on stuff alone.

Otherwise-as
has happened-when stuff is taken away….

we become miserable. Scared. Anxious.

No:

real
happiness is not stuff, but relationships, health, time…

Real Wellness in a Brave New World.

Gym
work is for the very few.

For
most of us we want:

mental
health to give us personal resilience in tricky times

and
personal energy to get the right stuff done, easily.

Give
them simple attention and they happen. But in a Blackberry world, distraction
and distortion easily happen.

Real Pension in a Brave New World.

keep
your earning power by building your value. As a knowledge worker there is no
reason at all why this should not continue to fund you well into traditional
‘old age’.

keep
your earning power by maintaining physical wellness and mental wellness partly–ironically-by
continuing to work at what you love.

Then
apart from an emergency fund, the big ‘pension pot’ becomesmuch less of an issue.

Real Career in a Brave New World.

The
thread: what do you offer people? What is the thread that has run though your career
to date?

What
are the core skills you need to support that?

Be
flexible. Build in flexibility as nobody has a clue what the world of work will
be like in 5 years time and yet there is one thing of which we can be sure: soft
skills will be in more demand than ever as everything else is chipped.

Think
portfolio: a mixed career, not
dependent upon one employer. The stats suggest that employer will go down at some
stage; it’s just a matter of time.

Think
value to generate money, not time.

Real Attitude in a Brave New World.

Nothing
is a given.

It
wasn’t meant to be easy.

But
who wants it easy anyway?

Chase
challenge, not comfort.

Real World. Real Brave New World.

Nothing
is a given. But everything is a possibility.

Nothing
is a guarantee. But anything can be tried.

All
is up for grabs. Go for it.

For
those who get it, really get it.

It’s
not a formula. It is a mindset.

A belief in oneself.

But
I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want
freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. The Savage in chapter 17 of Brave New World by Huxley.